by Susan Page and David Jackson, USA TODAY

by Susan Page and David Jackson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - The fireworks pictured on the front pages of some American newspapers on July 4 were lighting the skies above Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The Egyptian military's overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, albeit after a popular uprising, put President Obama in the awkward position of reacting with less than outrage over the ouster of Egypt's first democratically elected government. Instead, the White House found itself caught between America's core values as it celebrates its birthday at home - a defining belief in democracy - and U.S. interests abroad.

Those geopolitical interests might well be better served with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the once-banned Islamist movement, out of power in the world's largest Arab country, and with a more stable Egyptian government in charge.

"It's a very paradoxical situation," says Daniel Serwer, a former U.S. diplomat who teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "The realities are that we're probably better off in the immediate impact of this thing, because the (Egyptian-Israeli) peace treaty and relations with the (Egyptian) army are likely better without the Muslim Brotherhood. But in the longer term, they're going to want to see a return to democracy, and it can't be very long."

The administration must walk a "fine line" between its support for democracy and its need for a stable Egypt, given its importance in the region, says David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy magazine. "It plays a vitally important role with regard to its neighbors, including Israel."

Obama met Thursday with his national security advisers in the White House situation room to discuss developments in Egypt.

His only public words came in a cautious written statement issued Wednesday evening. "We are committed to the democratic process and the rule of law," he said, saying the United States was "deeply concerned" about Morsi's overthrow. "I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters."

In two important choices of words, Obama called for the return to "a" democratically elected civilian government - that is, not "the" civilian government that already had been democratically elected.

And he never used the four-letter word "coup." That's significant because U.S. law automatically cuts off aid to any country in which the "duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup d'etat or decree." The United States sends about $1.5 billion a year in aid to Egypt, almost all of it to the military that overthrew Morsi.

Obama, in his statement, referred instead to "the current unrest in Egypt," "this uncertain period" and "the decision of the Egyptian armed forces to remove President Morsi and suspend the Egyptian constitution." That said, he also directed "the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the government of Egypt."

"If this were to be seen as a coup, then it would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian armed forces," Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with CNN that aired Wednesday but was recorded before the overthrow.

Obama had called Morsi on Monday, urging him to follow more inclusive policies in the wake of widening street protests. Wednesday and Thursday, administration officials were on the phone with their Egyptian counterparts and others in the region. According to the White House, Secretary of State John Kerry called his Egyptian counterpart as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Norway. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called his counterparts in Egypt and Israel. National security adviser Susan Rice and her deputy, Antony Blinken, also made calls.

Their message: the need to return to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible, a transparent political process that includes all parties and groups, the responsibility of all groups to avoid violence, and the need to avoid arbitrary arrests of Morsi and his supporters.

The Egyptians have offered assurances that a civilian government would be put in place quickly and promised quick elections. The military also pledged to take steps to ensure the safety of Americans in Egypt, including those at the embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Alexandria. The State Department has ordered the families of embassy personnel and non-essential U.S. diplomats to leave Egypt.

The crisis in Egypt poses an early test for Obama's national security team, revamped in his second term. Rice, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, began her new job as White House national security adviser this week. Kerry and Hagel were sworn in this year. They have been largely focused on other fronts in the region, including U.S. military aid to the Syrian rebels and Kerry's efforts to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"Clearly, everybody in the administration is trying to talk to the contacts they have in Egypt to convey their concerns," says Jon Alterman, a State Department veteran now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There's no question Egypt resonates. What happens will send ripples around the region for years to come."

Those repercussions already were apparent. In civil war-torn Syria, embattled President Bashar Assad Thursday praised the demonstrations in Cairo against the Muslim Brotherhood, which has supported the armed conflict against his rule. In an interview with a state-run newspaper, he said Morsi's overthrow signaled the end of "political Islam."

U.S. officials are watching how rapidly the Egyptian military moves to set elections and whether the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to engage in elective politics rather than violent protest, says Isobel Coleman, director of the Civil Society, Markets and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations. "At stake, of course, is the credibility of democracy in that part of the world," she says, "and the United States has been a big backer of democracy."

In a reassuring move, a justice from the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, was sworn in Thursday as interim president. However, in a disquieting development, Gehad el-Haddad, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, said Morsi and a dozen of his aides had been placed under house arrest.

Morsi denounced his ouster as a "full coup," and a top foreign relations aide in effect mocked Obama's careful choice of words. "For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let's call what is happening by its real name: Military coup," Essam Haddad, assistant to the president of Egypt on foreign relations, said on his official Facebook page.

Backers of the protesters also joined the debate over rhetoric. The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Tarir put an English-language headline in red capital letters across the top of its front page Thursday: "IT'S A REVOLUTION ... NOT A COUP, MR. OBAMA!"

"Egypt is a critical ally and remains a critical ally, but it is now a foreign policy headache for the United States," says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon of the Council on Foreign Relations. "This is an administration that wanted to focus on nation-building at home, but the foreign policy questions just keep rising, and we don't see any end to it."